Torn to be Healed
by girl from the lake cottage
Summary: A look at Aravis as she reflects on who she has become...


_I made a New Year's resolution for 2009 to write a fanfiction before returning to school, so here is my feeble attempt to go a little deeper into the life of one of my favorite CoN characters, Aravis. C. S. Lewis was a wonderful writer, and Aravis and Cor and Aslan are all his, but I think we all know that by reading CoN they become a little bit of ours too. So here I pay homage to one of the greatest fiction series ever published, and hope that all who read it will come away a little better for the reading and maybe realize that they too were created for a place they've never known..._

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_Come, let us return to the Lord; for he has torn us, that he may heal us; he has struck us down, and he will bind us up_.

Hosea 6:1

It would be weeks and weeks before Aravis could look at her back in a mirror. It wasn't as though she disliked the scars, because she knew that they had a purpose. Even Cor told her that it was her scars, both inside and out, who made her who she was. But it was the fact that she had needed them in the first place that made her turn away from the reflected stripes. The healing hadn't taken long, and Cor told her that they were barely visible, but she could feel them still.

She was not angry about it. She had no overwhelming sense of rage at Aslan for the pain He had caused her. Who could feel rage towards a Lion – _the_ Lion - who was inherently good? He had even explained it to her, the reason for the tearing of skin, and she suspected that He did not often give explanations even to those who asked for them. The only person whom she was angry with was herself. She was the one to blame.

These thoughts, of blame and guilt and self-responsibility had swirled through Aravis' mind for months after arriving in Archenland. That first year, Cor would often find her sitting out on her balcony after dinner, staring southward. At the beginning he thought that she was missing Calormen, missing the warmth and the way the sun glistened on the golden sand of the desert, because he too was missing the south. He loved his new-found family and the mountains and forests surrounding Anvard, but one does not lose the connection to one's first home, no matter how horrid, so readily. So Cor assumed that she was remembering the silk and spices of Tashbaan, and often sat next to her in silence, gazing off into the distance.

But one night Aravis turned towards Cor and it was then that he saw the tears in her eyes. Later he would wonder if she had been crying every night that they sat outside together, but his immediate thought was to assure her that Archenland wasn't all that bad.

"Aravis, Anvard can't be that horrible, can it?" Cor asked, hoping to make her smile.

But his words didn't comfort as well as he thought, and she began crying in earnest.

"No, Cor, it isn't Anvard that is horrible. It's me," she sobbed, trying to wipe away her tears with the sleeve of her dress.

"You, horrible? Aravis, you're not nearly so bossy and pig-headed as you were when we first came north." But that statement only made her frown.

"Oh, and I suppose that you think you are nowhere near as selfish and rude as you were six months ago." She glared at him, dark eyes flashing. But then she turned away, and he saw her shudder. Cor stood up and put his arm around her shoulders.

"Sorry, Aravis. I shouldn't have -" But Aravis cut him off.

"No, you're right. I was bossy and pig-headed. And that's exactly why I feel the way I do, I suppose." Cor turned her around to face him, and saw that tears were still running down her cheeks.

"And you are right too – I was selfish and rude," he said soberly.

"But you're not anymore. You're fitting in marvelously, but I just can't. I can't make myself feel as though I fit in with all of that." Aravis waved her hand towards the castle. "It's all so beautiful, inside and out, and all of its people are too. But I'm not."

Cor touched her cheek. "Don't tell me this is all about how your skin is not quite as pale as Queen Susan's, or that your hair is not as fair as Queen Lucy's. Everyone says you are lovely, Aravis."

She turned to face southward again. "No, it's not my looks. It's _me_, Cor. How I am on the inside. You have no idea…"

"Of how undeserving you feel? Oh, I promise you that I feel exactly the same," he said, resting his hands on the ledge of the balcony. "And Corin doesn't help much their either" he grumbled under his breath.

Aravis shook her head. "It's not just undeserving that I feel. I feel… likeAslanshouldn'thaveletmeliveandthatIshouldhavediedoutinthedesertbecauseIamahorriblepersonandhavenorighttobelivinginacastlemuchlessbeaprincesslivinginacastle" she said quietly and quickly without taking a breath. She began to cry again. "Don't you get it, Cor? I don't deserve any of this!" There was desperation in her voice that Cor had never heard before.

Cor took her by the shoulders and sat her down in her chair, pulling his own over to face her. "Aravis, Aslan knew exactly what He was doing when He rescued you from the desert. You know that without Him, you wouldn't be alive, don't you?"

She looked down at her hands, twisting them in her lap. "Yes, but why? He could have killed me, and I would have deserved it. All of the horrible things I did…"

"Aravis, look at me. He wanted you to live. Aslan is not the kind of king who kills simply because of a wrong doing. He wants us as His own." Cor took a hold of her hands, but Aravis refused to look up.

"How do you know? Why should He want me?"

Cor sighed. She was a hard one to convince. "Did King Edmund ever tell you his story? No, probably not. He's a quiet one, loads different from his siblings, but soon after we got here he found me wandering the castle and apparently it looked as though I was very lost. He started talking to me, asking me about our journey, and when I told him that I was the last person on earth who could ever be a king, he laughed a little and told me that _he_ deserved to be a king least of all. Apparently long ago, when he and his brother and sisters were little children, he betrayed them, and the consequence of his betrayal was death. But it wasn't he who died. It was Aslan. I don't really understand it all, but King Edmund told me that to Aslan, it doesn't matter what we did in the past. It only matters that we know Him."

"Do you really believe that?" Aravis asked, her voice shaking a little. She looked up, and the tears had slowed. "I just can't get past the fact that I was so… wretched."

He smiled. "I _know_ so. Aslan's ways may not seem the easiest, but they are the best. _He _is the best. He looks past our wretchedness, Aravis. He wounded you so that you could be healed, remember? You are not the same girl that you were in Calormen. You are His." Cor stood up, and looked down at his closest friend. "Think about that, Aravis. _You are His_."

Aravis watched Cor walk down the steps and disappear around a corner of the castle wall before turning to glance toward the southern desert yet again. She was His? Aravis had never before known that belonging to Someone, being torn and healed by Someone, could ever feel so tranquil, so calming. There was a strange feeling within her, warmth growing somewhere. She was His. _His._

Aravis turned and went into her room, deciding that she had probably thought enough about her deep, psychological issues for one night. But before she went to bed, she turned and looked at her back in the mirror. The five white lines ran diagonally across her skin, and she traced one of them with her hand. Maybe she could move beyond herself and look to Him, she thought as she climbed into bed.

And outside her window, if she would have looked, she would have seen a huge golden lion running southward stop and look back, as if claiming something behind Him for His very own.


End file.
